


Sure Looks Strange to Me

by Findswoman



Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Atollon, Beer, Gen, Humor, Joopa, Monster that’s not what it seems, Music, Purple People Eater - Freeform, Season/Series 03, Zeb’s Hideout, bass guitar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-15 14:20:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28814787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Findswoman/pseuds/Findswoman
Summary: Zeb encounters a rare, large, strange, and dangerous creature in the wilderness of Atollon. (No, it’s not the Bendu!)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 6
Collections: Genuary 2021





	Sure Looks Strange to Me

**Author's Note:**

> There were two primary inspirations for this story: (1) **Raissa_Baiard** ’s [One-Hit Wonder Challenge](https://boards.theforce.net/threads/one-hit-wonder-challenge.50048198/) at JCF Fanfic forums, in which I received the infamous [“Purple People Eater”](https://www.metrolyrics.com/the-purple-people-eater-lyrics-sheb-wooley.html) (1958; video [here](https://youtu.be/5jV-E09efRE)), and (2) the P. G. Wodehouse short story [“Monkey Business,”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blandings_Castle_and_Elsewhere#) which features an unexpected encounter with a gorilla. Many thanks to **Raissa_Baiard** for beta-reading.

It was a warm, lazy late afternoon on the plains of Atollon, and Captain Garazeb Orrelios relaxed in the big chair at his hideaway outside Chopper Base. It was nice to finally be off duty and have a chance to recoup from all the crazy events of recent days: Ezra’s foray into the dark side (Zeb wished he had a five-cred for each time he had been awakened by the kid’s bad dreams and freaky visions), Kanan’s long, mysterious absence in the wilderness, and the whole bizarre Fulcrum business. And, of course, Lira San still weighed on his mind, what with all the pressure of being the Child who was supposed to Bring His Lost People Home. Not that he had found a single stripe of any other Lasat yet, but simply being on the lookout all the time was wearing him out. It was all so much to process.  
  
But out here, with a New Blarrus Dark Ale in his hand and the bass quetarra stylings of Kartni Entwiss playing on the audio receiver, he could at least reflect on things for a while. Or just forget about them for a little while—and karabast, wasn’t that even better?  
  
He took a swig of his ale and leaned back to soak up the warm evening air. Scattered orange-gray clouds that were just beginning to mosey across the sky, which meant that sunset was coming—his favorite time of day, just as it had been back home on Lasan. He turned up the receiver to better soak in Entwiss’s legendary bass riffs.  
  
That was when he saw it.  
  
Something flying. Something large, dark, and odd-shaped that was flying through the orange-gray sky—directly toward him. He rummaged in his storage container for a moment to see if he had any macrobinoculars—no luck. Meanwhile, it was coming closer and closer, faster and faster…  
  
Zeb reached reflexively for his bo-rifle, which sat on the bolted-on ledge beside him. Whatever this thing was, he wasn’t going to take any chances. He kept a steady eye on it as it continued its mad flight toward him. In only moments it was close enough for him to see—and what he saw filled him with dread.  
  
The crown of variously sized globular red eyes. The masses of clawed, chitinous tentacle-mouthparts, the gaping, toothless maw with multiple writhing tongues. The monstrously huge wormlike body. There was no mistake.  
  
It was a joopa. Here, on the empty coral-rock plains of Atollon, a joopa. Like the one that had almost eaten him back on Seelos.  
  
Only with two pairs of gigantic, leathery webbed wings.  
  
“Aw karabast,” he breathed to himself, feeling he had never uttered a bigger understatement in all his forty-two dust seasons. So all those stories were true—all those scary stories he’d heard as a kit about flying, tentacled, Lasat-eating joopas (they used to freak his poor little brother out something terrible, the poor kid). And yeah, sure, there was always some truth in legends and all that, just as Kanan had said—but no way had he expected it to look like this…  
  
Especially not when the thing made landfall and began squirm-slithering toward him at an alarming speed—with not one but two long, wet pink-orange tongues extended straight ahead of it, ready to coil around its prey.  
  
Zeb jumped up. The electromagnetic pulse generators at the tips of his bo-rifle sprang to angry purple life as he ratchet-flipped it outward into staff mode. Sure, he was technically off duty, but there was no way in the Bogan’s own Chaos that he was going to let one of those things near his comrades. Those hideous, multilegged krykna things had been bad enough. And there was _definitely_ no way he was going to let himself be eaten again.  
  
“Right, you just _try_ to get me, ya great big—ugly—GRRRRRRRRRR!!” His words dissolved into a ferocious growl as he charged the monster head-on, bo-rifle blazing as he slashed angrily at the two tongues—  
  
—both of which, to his complete surprise, severed immediately and simply crumpled to the ground like... burnt cloth? At which point the joopa staggered—yes, staggered!—backward almost half a body-length and uttered something that sounded like:  
  
“I say! Just what do you think you’re doing?!”  
  
Zeb stopped short, flabbergasted. Had that thing just _said_ something? As in, _words?_ To _him?_ How was that even possible? Since when did joopas _talk?_ And since when did they talk in cultivated, Coreworld accents? Not even the ones in the old scary stories from his kit years talked in _any_ accent. Perhaps he had had just a smidge too much of that New Blarrus ale…  
  
Even so, he still wasn’t going to let his guard down. He kept his eyes glued to the monster, his weapon still at the ready before him.  
  
“Look!” he roared through gritted teeth. “You were chargin’ at me an’ tryin’ to eat me! What was I supposed to do?!”  
  
The joopa spoke again. “Eat you? Of course not! Even if I could, I wouldn’t.”  
  
Zeb gave an incredulous grunt. “Hold on just a minute, here. What’s this ‘even if I could’ nonsense supposed to mean? ’Cause I’m not sure I believe ya!”  
  
“I mean exactly what I said!” The joopa’s tentacle-mouthparts shook querulously. “Even if I were actually able to eat you, I wouldn’t. I’d get indigestion. You’re way too tough and stringy.”  
  
“STRINGY?!” The bo-rifle vibrated angrily in Zeb’s hands. “What the—”  
  
“It was meant as a compliment.”  
  
Zeb rolled his eyes and twitched his ears. He lowered his weapon but didn’t deactivate it just yet. “Look, what’s goin’ on here, anyway? What even _are_ you? Are you a joopa, or are you not a joopa? Karabast, I can’t believe I’m even _havin’_ this conversation…”  
  
The joopa made a sound almost— _almost_ —like a chuckle. “I can’t believe you are, either. But I’ll put your mind at ease. I am not, in fact, a joopa.”  
  
“Not in fact a joopa.”  
  
“That is correct. One hundred percent artificial. Which means you can put that thing away now, if you please. It’s making me rather nervous. I’m already filled with anxiety at the prospect of making myself new tongues.”  
  
With a reluctant sigh Zeb deactivated, collapsed, and stowed his bo-rifle. If this thing had really wanted to eat him, it would have done so already. Still, he could hardly believe he was having a two-sided conversation with it.  
  
“Right,” he said, “so, who are you, an’ what are you doin’ out here?”  
  
“Me? Oh, I’m with Alliance High Command.”  
  
“Alliance. High. Command.” Karabast, this was just getting weirder and weirder...  
  
“Why, yes. I assume you’ve heard of them. They just sent me down here to check on you. Well, not you personally. The whole installation. Just to make sure that everything’s… all right, you know.”  
  
“All right? ’Course everything’s all right!” Zeb harrumphed. “Everything’s _fine!_ Everything’s PERFECT!” Except for those hideous, multilegged krykna things, but he wasn’t going to get into that now. “Look here, how do I know you’re not an Imperial agent or somethin’ tryin’ to hoodwink me?”  
  
“Ask and you shall receive,” replied the joopa. With that, it threw back its head, and, with a loud, gut-churning hacking noise, coughed up a small, metal object onto the sandy ground. “Apologies for the unpleasantness,” it added. “That is the only reliable way I can transfer items in this getup.”  
  
“No worries.” Zeb picked up the object and examined it. It was a code cylinder. He held it against his wrist commlink while activating the latter’s security authentication function. After a moment or two, a beep and a green light assured him it checked out: it belonged to one Lieutenant Cyrrick Doddsley-Wabbenfort, Alliance High Command, Stealth and Espionage Division. Zeb sighed and his ears drooped as he offered it back to the joopa.  
  
“Sorry, again. You’ll have to toss it into my mouth.”  
  
Zeb did so. The joopa gave a loud, equally gut-churning gulp, and the cylinder disappeared.  
  
“Thank you. And now I hope that you believe me.”  
  
“Yeah, fine, fine, I believe ya. Here, c’mon.”  
  
They began to walk—or, rather, Zeb walked and the joopa squirm-slithered—back across the coral-sand flats toward Zeb’s hideout, when suddenly the joopa stopped short.  
  
“Why, what’s that?” it said. “I hear something! Is that… is that Kartni Entwiss?”  
  
Zeb stopped too and perked up his ears. The sound of semi-distant bass quetarra licks wafting over the sands made him realize that he had left his audio receiver on. “Yeah, that’s right… you like it?”  
  
“Oh, my dear chap, Kartni Entwiss is my idol! I used to dabble in a bit in bass quetarra back in the day, you know.”  
  
“Hmph, that so?”  
  
The joopa simply continued. “If this war ever ends, I was thinking of taking it back up. Maybe even join a band, or some such.”  
  
“Heh, all right, then.” Zeb smiled and shrugged as they walked on. The conversation really _was_ getting weirder and weirder—but hey, at least the thing had good taste in music.

* * *

Some time later, Zeb was back in the big chair in his hideaway, knocking back another cold one while discussing the music of Kartni Entwiss with the joopa, who half sat on, half leaned against the ledge. Far away on the horizon, meanwhile, the sky was reddening, purpling, and even red-purpling as sunset came on.  
  
“Well, I should be probably getting back,” the joopa finally said, getting up. “They’ll be wondering what happened to me. But I must say, it was good talking with you.”  
  
Zeb got up as well and said words he never dreamed he’d be saying to a joopa, of all things. “Heh, yeah, good talkin’ to you too.”  
  
“Always glad to meet another aficionado of Kartni Entwiss.”  
  
“Yeah, same. Say, er…” Zeb paused a moment, then reached into the cooler compartment of the bunker beside him and took out another New Blarrus Dark. “Take one for the road?”  
  
“Why, thank you, you’re very kind. Just set it right inside, if you please.”  
  
The gigantic mouth opened again. Gingerly, Zeb placed the can inside. Immediately the joopa snapped its mouth shut, threw back its head, and gave another raucous gulp.  
  
“Well, toodle-oo for now,” it continued amiably. “May the Force be with you, and all that.”  
  
“Likewise,” Zeb answered, raising a hand to wave goodbye. He watched the joopa as it turned around, squirm-slithered back into the wilderness, and finally spread its four giant, leathery wings to flap upward into the twilight-tinged clouds.  
  
The sunset was in full swing now. Zeb plopped back down in his big chair and leaned back to watch. Sounds of some early hits by the Skarabs—the band in which Kartni Entwiss had gotten his start—now emanated from the receiver. Who knew, maybe someday in the future, when (if!) it was all over, he’d be sitting here listening to the bass stylings of Cyrrick Dobbsley-Wad… or Waddesley-Dobb… or whatever his name was. But for now, it was time to counteract the weirdness of the afternoon with a nice relaxing sunset, good music—and no more New Blarrus Dark.

**Author's Note:**

> [Zeb’s hideout](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Zeb%27s_Hideout) appears in the sunset scene in “The Mystery of Chopper Base,” and I thank **Raissa_Baiard** for sharing with me a scan of the relevant page from the _Dawn of Rebellion_ RPG sourcebook (Fantasy Flight Games, 2018), which, incidentally, also mentions Zeb’s interest in listening to “epic, inspirational music” on the receiver in his hideout.  
>   
> New Blarrus: Fanon, based on a craft brewery in my neck of the woods, [New Glarus Brewing Company](https://newglarusbrewing.com/).  
>   
> Kartni Entwiss: Fanon, based on two well-known RL players of electric bass: [Paul McCartney](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_McCartney) and [John Entwistle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Entwistle).  
>   
> A [joopa](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Joopa) was first seen in “The Lost Commanders.” The joopa from that episode is, of course, painted on the breastplate of Zeb’s armor in his season 3–4 costume design.  
>   
> Cyrrick Doddsley-Wabbenfort: An homage to the name of the gorilla impersonator in “Monkey Business,” Cyril Waddsley-Davenport. (Yes, I know the Wikipedia page says “Cecil,” but it’s wrong. I have the actual book, and it’s Cyril. 😛 )


End file.
